As of Wednesday evening, Erie County has 3,315 positive cases of coronavirus

Are Coronavirus numbers in Erie County heading in the wrong direction?

At this time 254 Erie County residents have died from coronavirus.

The County set a new high in coronavirus-related hospitalizations on Monday with 258. County Executive Mark Poloncarz said “We should all be discouraged” that the numbers are headed in the wrong direction.

Do we have enough recent local numbers to say for sure we’re trending in the wrong direction?

“Typically you’d like to say there needs to be at least three points on a curve (to determine a trend),” said Dr. Bruce Troen from the Jacobs School of Medicine. “Right now, unfortunately, we are not heading in the right direction in Erie County.”

Poloncarz said hospital admissions exceeded discharges for the last three days of data.

“It does reflect that we have a persistent focus of infection,” Troen said. “I can’t say that any time soon that’s going to abate.”

So how do we move from this point to beginning to reopen Western New York? Troen said hospitalizations are only part of the answer.

“What we desperately need is more widespread testing on a trial basis so that we can understand with random testing who are the folks that are actually being affected,” Troen said. “Only then can we be able to make better decisions about how we can eventually start opening the community up.”

Troen said it will take a combination of both Coronavirus tests and antibody tests to get a clear picture of the population, but it will take time before we can say with certainty that those with antibodies have a decreased infection rate.